| Macromedia introduced flash on the internet a few | | | | its size. |
| years ago. As more and more features are | | | | Flash do require a flash player and redirecting |
| offered we can only expect that the growing | | | | people with no flash to a download site can |
| number of sites embedding flash movies will | | | | sometimes irritating specially for non geeky |
| continue to grow. Undeniably, flash enables our | | | | visitors. Now, if the visitor refuses to download |
| sites to become more interactive, entertaining and | | | | the flash player, your site will be completely non |
| downright beautiful but still continues to attract | | | | viewable. One way to counter this problem is to |
| hoards of comments as being unnecessary and | | | | provide a separate pages for flash and non flash |
| overly done. Where exactly do we begin to draw | | | | visitors. This again will sum up additional hours in |
| the line as being flash-based or not? Here is a | | | | the development. |
| quick run down. | | | | Optimizing a Flash-site is extremely difficult. This is |
| Interactivity is one of the best feature of a flash | | | | because spiders (search engines) would not be |
| site. From flash games, interactive quizzes, | | | | able to read or understand the site. Spiders read |
| rotating images to web forms provide a major | | | | content and if 90% of your site is flash-based, |
| component for the visitors to keep coming back. | | | | then expect a low organic traffic (traffic |
| Programmers and designers have been pushing | | | | generated by search engines) heading towards |
| the limits of flash to suffice the never ending | | | | your site. |
| craze for being 'part' of the whole presentation. | | | | Flash-based site also needs an ample loading time, |
| Have you ever visited a site that looks good on | | | | specially on machines with slow internet |
| Firefox but not on Internet explorer? Or perhaps | | | | connections. This is because a flash movie needs |
| a website that shows 'Best Viewed on Internet | | | | to be loaded all together before it actually starts |
| Explorer' notice before they let you in? This is | | | | as compared to text and images which are |
| basically a cross-browser problem compatibility. As | | | | loaded almost simultaneously. Visitors patience are |
| a programmer or website designer, this posses a | | | | tested on this part and according to the studies, |
| major setback and eats a lot of time during the | | | | they do not wait as much as 15 seconds to see |
| development trying to test the outcome of | | | | your presentation come alive. They head off to |
| every browsers on the market. However, with | | | | another site, millions of them anyway. |
| flash all you need to have is a flash player installed | | | | With the advent of broadband internet |
| on the viewer's machine and your ready to go. | | | | connections, embedding flash movies on your |
| Expressing thoughts to animation. Some things are | | | | website is no longer a problem. Properly optimizing |
| better explained through animating objects and | | | | your movies to tolerable loading time is probably |
| flash movies are way too compressed as their | | | | the best way to go. You should also consider |
| real movie counterpart that indeed they are | | | | mixing flash with regular text and images to |
| getting the attention of being the top notched | | | | promote search engine optimization. After all, a |
| animators. This is because flash uses vector | | | | site without visitor is just like a bride without a |
| graphics (and therefore a lot smaller) while the | | | | groom. |
| other is raster based and therefore a lot larger in | | | | |